Day 13 - New Mexico and home

Day 13 started in Sante Fe with the promise of clear and hot all the way home. We packed up and headed out at a reasonable hour - neither of us too sorry to say goodbye to our last night living out of a suitcase. A quick stop at a convenience store for coffee and tea and we were off. We were plagued with assorted 5 mile construction zones off and on but nothing much else of interest. We were parallel to the Rio Grande but you couldn't see it, just a line a trees off to the side - then desert between the trees and construction. After 12 days of hanging together we decided that maybe it was time for someone else's voice so we plugged in an audio book and cruised on down the highway.  We arrived in Truth or Consequences, NM around noon so made that our lunch stop. It felt good to get out of the car and stretch. We swapped drivers and headed off again. The audio book really helped and almost before we knew it (although our cramped muscles did) we were back in AZ - and whaddya know? we found that hour we had lost 12 days ago. We stopped in Wilcox for a stretch and a snack and then hopped back in the car for the final leg. We pulled into my driveway almost exactly at 5 PM. It probably took Monica another 30 minutes and the loop from our Road Trip was closed. Home sweet Home!

Day 12 - wildfires and rain

We woke up to overcast skies and cool weather (so glad I kept out my hot weather gear). We were back on the freeway heading to Colorado and points south. As we moved into Colorado and approached Denver, the surrounding countryside became more densely populated - as did the highways. As we neared Colorado Springs we saw some signs of the wildfires on the hill sides. We didn't see any burned out houses and the rain clouds were hanging low so we also didn't see any smoke. As we got to the South side of town we saw signs for the Garden of the Gods park. We decided to take a break from the drive and headed into the park for a short walk and fresh air. The park included some really interesting rock formations and there appeared to be a number of rock climbers giving lessons to novices on the rocks. We spent about an hour at the park before resuming our journey south. From that point on we played tag with the rain. First a drizzle, then a downpour and then dry pavement. The temperature dropped from 81 to 58 in about 10 miles. Most of the rest of the drive it averaged in the upper 60's. It was great! We pulled into Sante Fe at 6 PM. I'm glad to say that the drive between Cheyene and Sante Fe did not include a single sea gull!

vacation sidebar - trailer parks

Why is it that there is always a trailer park in a low lying area next to water? I have seen these being washed out by high waters in pretty much every town I've lived in. And then they just re-"build" in the same spot. Hello?!

Day 11 - weddings, cattails and back to the freeway

Its day 11 of our fabulous vacation. I woke at 8 this am to find Monica already gone to help her sister, Marsha, with the catering for the wedding reception. So Monica spent the morning playing sous chef to her sister while I had a lazy morning. At noon we headed to the park for the wedding reception (party). I hadn't been clued in on the details but the party was on the banks of the Platte River. While Monica did the family thing I took a walk along the river. The river level was up and the flow was moving along at a good pace. The river looked perfect for floating along in a canoe - but I didn't have one so I just walked along and enjoyed the breeze and the sounds of water flowing. I took pictures of the river, cottonwoods and cattails. I didn't walk too far, just up to a bluff overlooking the river where the view prompted today's vacation sidebar on trailer parks. After my walk I did go back and do the social thing while enjoying some of the yummy eats provided by Monica's sister. We were sitting there chatting when I saw the inconcievable - a seagull sitting on the lamppost! I thought I had already established that seagulls belong next to the sea! not on the prairie! We left soon after that and got back on the freeway heading south to Cheyenne. The first portion of the drive included more prairie. We did get a better view of that wind turbine farm and it was really large... very encouraging. Antelopes in small family groups contined to be the only wildlife on the horizon. As we closed in on Cheyenne the skies were darker and darker until they finally opened up and the rain began to fall. Just as we pulled out on our exit it turned into a deluge - yea! Fortunately there was an Outback across the parking lot from the hotel so we did not need to get lost in Cheyenne in the rain. Another great day of vacation.

Day 10 - South Dakota, Nebraska and Wyoming (again)

On this 10th day of vacation we woke up to glorious rain! It felt like we had dodged fires all the way except in Yellowstone so it was nice to see some precipitation. We packed up from the Super 8 and drove off into the mist. First stop was the Roughluck falls. Monica had lots of memories of this place so we charged off following her memories until we reached a dead-end. Backtracking we found the signs pointing the way which actually took us where we wanted to go. The water fall was beautiful - sort of shaped like a tuning fork. A little ways further downstream we were able to see brown trout laying in wait for tasty insects and the like. After that we headed on through Spearfish canyon on our way to Rapid City. It was a lovely drive through the forested region. The forests are kept thinned out there making it all look more park-like than wild. We saw a couple of deer and plenty of birds (but no seagulls!). Where are the rabbits? On this 10th day of communing with nature I have yet to see a single bunny. Weird. After a brief stop in Rapid City we headed to Mount Rushmore. We took the trail down to the sculptors studio which had like a million steps and then went through the exhibits there. Ice cream and shopping was our reward for surviving all the steps. From Mount Rushmore we took the short hop over to the Crazy Horse monument. Everything there seemed a bit pricey but I thought it was worth the trip. It is surpising that it is taking so much longer to sculpt than Mount Rushmore did - based on the progress to date. The "welcome center" is much more than a gift shop - it is full of Native American exhibits as well as the usual assortment of tee shirts and key chains. After Crazy horse, we still had a long way to drive to get to Casper so we headed South through the prairie. We went through the Olaland grasslands - huge expanses of rolling hills with grass that appear to go on forever. I had to close my eyes to imagine them covered with Bison (yes it was okay to close my eyes - monica was driving). We saw small family groups of antelope but not much else. We entered Nebraska while we were driving through the grasslands. Monica claimed the South Dakota grasslands were more fertile than the Nebraska grasslands but it all looked the same to me. After a while the prairie stared to be more broken up with more trees and small gorges. Apparently Elk live there as well as deer and the rest. As we headed back into Wyoming we saw train after train after train hauling coal - monica tried to count the cars and claims there were 138 coal cars in one train. After traveling through a lot of wind I was finally rewarded with seeing some wind turbines - since no one seems to live out on these plains and the wind continues to blow - seems like a good thing. We arrived Casper safe and sound and were able to join Monica's family for dinner before retiring.

day 9 -hightailin it across Wyoming

After 4th of july fireworks we woke up to haze and clouds. We had slept later than intended so we 'got the heck out of Cody'. We had great US Highways to follow for about half the way - the first part was prairie where the deer and the antelope played. Then we hit the Big Horn Mountains and started climbing - and climbing - and climbing. 9666 was the elevation of the Powder river Pass. As we climbed the mountain we passed oodles of bicyclists - apparently a group from "cycle america" was on the move over the mountain. Congrats to all of them! Once over the Big Horn we stopped for lunch in Buffalo. We jumped on the interstate and rushed on over to NorthEastern Wyoming to catch up with the Mother Ship at Devils Tower - apparently, however, we were too late. We walked all the way around the tower and no sign of it! On the plus side we did meet some Firefighters from Sedona AZ. They had been sent to Edgemont, SD to help with the fires there. (They were definitely the best looking group of firefighters that I have seen outside of a calendar.)We took some county roads on our way back to the freeway and were astonished to see something crossing the road in front of us - a mother turkey herding her 6 chicks! They just walked across the road in a perfect line and off into the tall grass on the other side. We made it the rest of the way to Spearfish with no issues. One more "first" for me though, as we returned from dinner the tornado siren was going off. It sounds just like the old air raid siren from the 50's - so I had a temporary flash back to hiding under a desk (although what good that would have done I have no idea).Watching the news and then this day of vacation is complete.

Day 8 - Goodbye to Yellowstone

We started the day by checking out of the lovely TravelLodge in Gardiner, MT. We were lucky enough to be on the 4th floor overlooking the Park and the Roosevelt Arch. It was our last day in Yellowstone so we headed out East from Mammoth Springs to Tower Falls. We cruised along enjoying the scenery stopping at several overlooks including the Overlook for the Undine falls. As usual we saw some Bison but not much other wildlife. As we approached the entrance to the Petrified tree overlook we noticed that there were a lot more cars than could be justified by one rock-tree. Up on the hill strolling about the meadow was a grizzly bear! It was too far away to be more than a moving brown smudge on the hillside to the naked eye but fortunately we had binoculars. It was incredible! it was like a festival in that pull-out... everyone ooh'ing and ahh'ing. We could have spent all day watching him. That was a once in a lifetime moment. We finally moved on and went to Tower Falls. The overlook had a good view of the falls but there was a trail down to the bottom that we took. It was pretty steep but of course nothing to us veterans of QueensGarden/NavajoLoop trail at Bryce canyon. The sad news was that the trail to the base of the falls was closed almost at the bottom of the trail. We could have gone the rest of the way to the river but not to the falls so we just hiked back up. From there we took the road up and over Mount Washburn and started on our way out of the park. We said goodbye to Yellowstone at around 3:30 and headed East to Cody arriving at our hotel at 5 and here we are. Fourth of July fireworks should begin in downtown Cody at 10 tonight.

Day 7 - Yellowstone Lake

We had another awesome day at Yellowstone. Amazingly we could actually walk this morning in spite of our equine adventure of yesterday. Today's adventure took us to Yellowstone Lake. It is huge and glorious. It was quite windy so lots of white caps which I think adds a lot of texture to the scenery. So a large lake with whitecaps and snow capped mountains in the backdrop. Wow! Today's hike was out to see a natural bridge. The trail head was at the Yellowstone Lake and was all through the woods - which was a big change from some of the other hikes on this trip. The route we took back from the bridge did not end up exactly where we expected although I would not say we were lost since we could at least see where we meant to be. A short walk delivered us back to the car. After that we rewarded ourselves with ice cream and shopping ... a winning combination. From there we decided that we needed some education and went to the Yellowstone Education center. I had not realized that the reason there are all the geysers were because Yellowstone sits on top of an active volcano. Someday, old Faithful could stop spouting steam and actually spout lava - yikes! We headed back north from there but had to stop for a bison viewing as a herd had finally decided to cooperate and do their grazing near the road. After we were back on the road we were commenting on how we had only seen a few elk at a time.... we came around a corner and there was a herd of elk! yea. Oh yes our other wildlife sighting was a yellow bellied marmot. That made today a pretty productive one for wildlife sightings. Only 1 day left to find the elusive moose, bear or wolf. Oh well the scenery alone would be worth the trip. The wildlife is like the sprinkles on the ice cream.

vacation side bar - sea gulls (contd)

I'm glad to say that I have not seen any sea gulls in YellowStone. I've got a new theory about their presence in Utah & Idaho .... maybe some gold miner was attempting to train them to be "carrier" sea gulls to send messages to someone in San Francisco.... but experiment failed!

Day 6 - Horses & Old Faithful

Day 6 started with a half day horseback ride through part of Yellowstone - not too far from Mammoth Springs. We anticipated this treat with both excitement and trepedition. Monica had not been on a horse for 16 years, and except for a few 30-60 minute rides I had not in even longer. We met our crew leaders, Abby and Carey at 0915 at Mammoth Springs and followed them out to the trail head. There the 2 guides unloaded the horses and gave us a quick lesson on how to make the horses go and, more importantly, how to make them stop. There were 14 "dudes" along with the 2 guides so we made a pretty long string. The horses were all great. They had been well trained and had great trail manners. The ride was gorgeous. We rode for about 2 hours until we arrived at our lunch spot. After lunch we mounted up and headed uphill. The trail became more interesting as we followed what felt like a teeny ledge along the side of the mountain until we reached the peak. Yet another fabulous view! The ride down was thankfully uneventful but very enjoyable. Unfortunately, after dismounting, walking seemed to be unaccountably difficult. We may have remembered what we were supposed to do on horseback but I must conclude that our muscles had not. Hot showers were definitely indicated.We took a break during the heat of the day and headed back to see Old Faithful at sunset. Frankly, I did not expect it to be nearly as awesome as it was. It was incredible. Kudos, mother nature!

Day 5 - Into Yellowstone

Yesterday was a long day so we didn't get to post an update and this morning we had plans, that info will come later. We headed off into the Tetons and enjoyed the views. We stopped off at Jackson Hole to ride the tram to the top to take in the mountain air. Everything, but the smoke in the distance, was beautiful. We then visited downtown before heading further North. We arrived in Yellowstone late in the day but we still decided we needed some exercise so went over to the Lower Falls. Tish took a walk down to the brink of the falls while I stayed back as I was feeling a little dizzy from the altitude. We finally got to the hotel at 9 PM and still had to eat so it was a REAL LONG DAY! Hope you enjoy the pictures...

Day 4 - Utah to Wyoming

Day 4 started off leisurely - you have to have some of those during your vacation. We slept in and even after heading north stopped for a Starbucks break. We thought we would get a glimpse of the Great Salt Lake but there were too many buildings and such in the way. In keeping with the nature of the trip we jumped back off the freeway not far north of Salt Lake City and were back on US-89 - yep the same road that goes through Page,AZ. The scenic route is definitely the way to go. It was so green and beautiful. We did a lot of up hill climbing and down hill coasting. As we got to the top of one rise we saw a sign for a scenic overlook and we figured it would be a good place to stretch legs - which it was but wow, what a view! Bear Lake. It is a huge and gorgeous lake. It was an incredible sight and unexpected (by me at least). As we traveled past the lake we passed into Idaho - State #3 for this trip. Idaho continued the progression into greener, lusher scenery. Our journey through Idaho was fairly short and then we were in Wyoming. We arrived in the small town of Afton Wy at around 5. We checked into our small family owned motel (corral out back) and were told about the spring which provides all of the water for the whole town. A short drive from our motel and then we were hiking along the stream in the quest for the source. It was an easy hike of about a mile and we came to the spot where one mountain stream met up with another. We hiked up a ways further and got to the waterfall where the water gushed out of the cliffside. There we got a huge suprise. Snow! It wasn't a huge amount but there was snow on the ground... no wonder it was so nice and cool. It was well worth the hike. Since the hostess of the motel had given us such a good recommendation on the hike we used her advice for dinner as well. It wrapped up the day nicely. Grand Tetons & Yellowstone tomorrow!

vacation side bar - what the heck!? Sea gulls?

What is the deal with seagulls in Utah!? Who brought them here? I saw one in Idaho, too. I am beginning to think that Noah's ark must have landed in the Rockies and abandoned some inland. Why are they here?!

Day 3

Wow! what a day! We had spent the night in Cedar City, UT and headed out to Bryce National Park... unfortunately we got a few miles down the road towards the park to be confronted with "road closed" notifications. We would have used the Tom-tom to help us find an alternate route however turning it on led to being told to take the next exit and u-turn back to Tucson (?! like that was going to happen ?!). Fortunately we are old school enough to have brought along paper maps. We cruised down the road which was very bucolic and actually got to see Bambi and his mother out in a field along the road. Everything was quite green and it was a pleasant drive. We were still about 15 minutes away from Bryce when we found ourselves in Red Canyon. We are convinced that we have now found the source of the Crayola crayon called "Burnt Orange". I had no idea that was a real color. What's the most amazing is to see Ponderosa pines sticking out of it. I think my first grade teacher would have told me that wasn't very realistic if I had drawn it! We finally got to Bryce but had to wait for deer to stroll across the road in front of us - zero fear there! We were delighted to find that the temp on the rim of Bryce canyon was upper 70's. We picked our trail and headed down the canyon and down and down and down. It was a lonnnnggggg way down. There were some really cool sticky up things which we learned are called hoodoo's. I kind of like sticky-up things as the best technical term. We took a nice rest at the bottom after looking at a field of man-made cairns - or at least someone else called them that. Stacks of rocks like you see in a zen garden .... there were hundreds of them. Then came the climb out. Switch after back after switch... I think the climb would give Tumamoc a run for its money...Anyway we made it and were glad we did. Monica was all for using the coin showers but since we had no towels, she would have had to dry off by streaking the parking lot - we opted for ice cream instead. We headed out from Bryce at around 3:30 and stopped at the Cowboy Smoke House for yummy sandwiches. Since we are on vacation we opted to stay off of the freeway as long as possible. We had a nice drive through more of that bucoliic countryside that I mentioned earlier. lots of horses cows, sheep and even a donkey farm.... About an hour out frrom Provo we started seeing a large cloud formation to the NW which we thought might bbe a rain storm but turned out to be a wildfire - fortunately on the other side if the mountain from us..Technical difficulties....will upload pictures and complete tomorrow.....

Day Two

Day Two started out early at the Marble Canyon Lodge. We were up at 6 to a beautiful morning. We took our time but were on the road by 0830. We headed west across the Kaibab plateau and past the entrance to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. I (tish) was driving so Monica got to do the rubbernecking and was rewarded by seeing several wild turkeys strolling along just inside the tree line. We went through some stunning landscapes and finally found our way to Utah where we unaccountably lost an hour right away... okay I do understand but it was lost anyway. The southeastern entrance to Zion National park took us into some of the most awe-inspiring scenery I've ever seen. We spent the rest of the day hiking in and out of gorgeous canyons with a surprising amount of water. Monica, in particular, enjoyed standing in the spray of the waterfalls that we saw. Since we had been hiking in 100+ degrees, our day concluded with showers and alcohol... and of course, this blog entry.

Day one

Vacation started at 9:45 this morning, blowing out of Tucson 15 minutes early. Breezed through Phoenix leaving a haboob in our wake. Reached Marble Canyon Logde in time to watch the condors camping on the bridge. These were numbered 02, 54, and 73. Walked ALL the way across the Colorado River on the Navajo Bridge in 100 degree weather. Now enjoying a little of the bubbly!

Amost time!

We only have 2 more work days and then we are off. I am getting excited and wish the wait was over. See you soon!

Getting Started

This is the first entry for our vacation. Hope you enjoy following it. This is the route we will be taking.